I see there is a definite bias toward the urban areas. Even the smaller cities on the list are fairly large.

As for D.C., they obviously do not mean the real District, like Northeast D.C. and Anacostia, as is obvious by the fact that neither the Obamas nor Clintons dared send their kids to D.C. schools. Clearly, they mean the white areas of Georgetown and the Wisconsin and Connecticut Avenue corridors, as well as some of the surrounding areas to the west in Virginia and to the north in Maryland (but certainly not P.G. County).

Hmmm, they didn't say how far out they measured. The Philadelphia area (ranked 76) is generally viewed as the 5 counties in SE PA, South Jersey, and Delaware.

Granted, I left about a dozen years ago, but there were many nice communities to live and raise kids; there are some nice areas in the city itself (Northeast Philly, Society Hill). I see something like this and am reminded that there is nothing like going there and seeing for yourself.

Odd. Thursday last was talking to a fellow from Madison about a job. He was working from home, and his dog started whimpering. Kids were walking home from school past his place. He said it's a great place to live.

How could Jersey City NJ be up there in the top twenty? That's one of the cities which the pro-gun crowd uses to argue that gun control doesn't work. I disagree with that of course, but not with the fact that you wouldn't want to walk the streets at night there. Here was an interesting report in it.

Burlington, VT? Yeah if you want your daughter to stop shaving her legs and insist that you have a composting toilet. All of the cities at the top are full of leftists. Yeah, Burlington is a pretty city and kind of neat. But if you live there, you have to interact with any number of brain dead aging hippies and G20 protestors. No way am I letting those people anywhere near my children.

A look at the list tells you exactly what the criteria was for creating it: where liberal indoctrination of children is the strongest.

Even the cities located in "red states" are the places where the Leftists gather.

The fact that places like Detroit and Oakland even made the list AT ALL tells you that this has nothing to do with the place actually being good for children. How can cities that are best known for their violence even receive serious consideration? Is growing up with a serious risk of being a random victim of a drive-by shooting now a requirement of a good childhood?

Just another example of Leftist politics masquerading as news. The problem is that it's not even a good costume: more like just using a marker on a paper bag and putting over your head.

I'll add one more thought: my guess is that this list was put together by the teachers' union, NEA. It wasn't journalism: it was a repackaged press release.

I'm going to guess that they ranked the cities based on their own judgment of the strength of the teachers' unions in those cities.

After all, if those are the "best places to raise a child" then it must be because of the teachers' unions, right?

Most of the cities on that list have declining populations - as parents flee the cities for the safety of the suburbs. So how do you maintain the power of the teachers' unions? You have to encourage the taxpayers who were paying their salaries to return. So you get a sympathetic "news" organization to publish a bogus "Best Places to Raise a Child" article that will likely be picked up and linked to by gullible bloggers oblivious to the obvious political agenda being pushed.

Burlington is a very nice town. So is Madison. But I have to question a list that says Jersey City (13) and Neward (46) as best cities to raise children. Did they even bother to go check those places out? And NYC? Maybe if you make $500,000+ a year. Otherwise it is a sucky place to raise kids.

This is not a "list of the 100 best places to raise children". They started with a list of 100 cities and then ranked them based on criteria that parents said were desirable. It does not imply that Detroit is the 100th most desirable place to raise kids, but rather that Detroit is the worst among the cities they ranked.

It is a waste that you live in Madison without kids to raise. I would like you to adopt me and Lindsey Lohan and raise us right, we both need it. We can babysit each other while you go bowling, so don't think it will screw up your lives. We will be good. We promise. C'mon, pleeeeeese.

Note that the first two criteria for education are student/teacher ratio and spending per pupil. Neither are well correlated with educational outcomes. Hence the number of cites with bloated, expensive bad school systems. Try percentage of public school teachers with children in private schools if you want a better measure of quality.

Chickenlittle, in the Nichols post, wrote: Now wait just one gosh-darned minute- I thought Madison was the second best place on earth to bring up kids?Oh wait! I guess you have to have them in the first place.

That's the missing criteria: the density of other kids. The best place to raise children is where there are a lot of children.

Haven't you heard? Cities are are a better option in a country intent on energy independence. We need to get our people back to building high speed rail so that we can leave the highways and the big cars behind for the bicycles and bullit trains.